Volunteer Rosalynn West of Indianapolis, left, helps Carmel Roseberry, 62 of Indianapolis, right, with a crossword puzzle to help strengthen her vocabulary skills at the Indy Reads office on Nov. 13, 2012. / (Matt Detrich / The Star)

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About the campaign

Even as the economy shows signs of improvement, many in our community continue to struggle. But you can help.

The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com invite you to participate in our annual Season for Sharing fund drive.

Your donation will support agencies that improve educational opportunities for Hoosier children, provide quality child care and preschool programs, and offer literacy programs to adults. This focus on education aligns with our ongoing campaign, “Our Children, Our City,” an effort that has been raising awareness about the plight of young people in Central Indiana since January 2010.

Last year, Season for Sharing distributed $224,500 to 27 such nonprofits. This year, every dollar you donate, up to $190,000, will be matched by a 50-cent donation from the Gannett Foundation and the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.

The Star will cover all administrative costs, so every cent you donate and the matching funds go directly to the agencies we support.

When you donate to Season for Sharing, you give more than money: You provide hope, safety and independence to thousands of Indianapolis’ most vulnerable youngest residents. You can change someone’s life.

The best part of my job is the platform it provides to highlight amazing people and inspiring organizations that do so much to make life better in Central Indiana.

I thought about that last week as I wrote about Indy Reads, a local nonprofit committed to reducing the plague of adult illiteracy in this region. In preparing that column, I got to know Sarah Serr, a Carmel woman who has dedicated a few hours nearly every week for the past three years to the goal of giving one young man a chance at a better life.

You can find people like Serr doing great work -- voluntarily, on their own time -- every day of every week. They're often changing the world one person at a time, one tough step at a time, and with little notice paid to them. They deserve our thanks.

They also deserve our support.

Although I don't normally tell people how to spend their money, I will make a request today that you support groups and people who are giving our community so much. An easy way to do that is by making a contribution, online or through the mail, to The Star's Season for Sharing campaign. The Star will match a chunk of the money contributed and then turn it all over to a variety of wonderful local nonprofits. Last year, the campaign supported 27 organizations.

Organizations such as Starfish Initiative, which provides mentors to at-risk students in the city with the goal of helping more students make their way to college. I've met many students served by this organization over the years -- students who now fill Indiana's colleges and universities -- and I can't overstate how life-changing the program can be.

Organizations such as The Julian Center, which provides shelter and other services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, and which is always in need of help.

Organizations such as College Mentors for Kids, which pairs at-risk children with college students who serve as mentors and show them that much is possible if you're willing to work hard in school and able to avoid the traps that capture too many students in too many neighborhoods.

Organizations such as the IPS Foundation, which, as it did last year, hopes to use a Season for Sharing grant to help send a group of students from the Key Learning Community school to Costa Rica for a service trip. I wrote about last year's effort and along the way met a group of hard-working students who were eager to travel to another country to help people in need. Trips like these are about more than sightseeing; they show many students that the world is bigger than their neighborhoods, and that they can have big dreams.

Organizations such as Day Nursery, a local child-care provider that works hard to address the devastating achievement gap that plague children of poverty. The organization serves hundreds of low-income families but is in need of more funding so that it can help more children. (Full disclosure: Among the volunteers at Day Nursery is one I consider the cutest volunteer in town: my wife.)

The list of organizations worth helping -- and that the Season for Sharing campaign will support -- is much longer. The support these groups receive will have a bottom-line impact on the lives of people who deserve a boost. It also will send a message of thanks to those volunteers who give so much of their time to make Central Indiana a stronger place.

One thing I've found over the years is that newspaper readers are a particularly generous group. You've frequently given to schools, organizations and families that needed help after reading about them, changing lives along the way. I hope you'll consider doing so once again.

If you would like to help, you can give online at IndyStar.com/sfs, or you can mail your contribution along with the form on page A2 of Sunday's paper.